Mark

, or Marcus, the founder of the sect of the
Marcosians, is said to have appeared about the year 160,
or, according to some, about the year 127. Many learned
moderns are of opinion that Mark belonged to the Valentinian school, but Rhenford and Beausobre say that the
Marcosians were Jews, or judaizing Christians; and Grabe
likewise owns that they were of Jewish extract. Irenseus
leads us to imagine that Mark, who was an Asiatic, had
come into Gaul and made many converts there. Nevertheless, learned moderns think that they were only disciples of Mark, who came into that country, where Irenaeus
resided, of whom, in one place, he makes particular mention. Irenaeus represents him as exceedingly skilful in all
magical arts, by means of which he had great success.
Tertullian and Theodoret concur in calling Mark a magician. Irenseus, after giving an account of the magical arts
of Mark, adds, that he had, probably, an assisting daemon,
by which he himself appears to prophesy, and which enabled others, especially women, to prophesy likewise: this
practice favoured his seduction of many females, both in
body and mind, which gained him much wealth. He is
also said to have made use of philters and love-potions, in
order to gain the affections of women; and his disciples
are charged with doing the same. Dr. Lardner suggests
some doubts as to the justice of these accusations; and
indeed there is considerable obscurity in every particular
of his personal history. His followers, called Marcosians,
| are said to have placed a great deal of mystery in the
letters of the alphabet, and thought that they were very
useful in finding out the truth. They are charged unjustly with holding two principles, and as if they were
Docetse, and denied the resurrection of the dead; for
which there is no sufficient evidence. They persisted in the
practice of baptism and the eucharist. As to their opinion
concerning Jesus Christ, they seem to have had a notion
of the great dignity and excellence of his person, or his
ineffable generation: and, according to them, he was born
of Mary, a virgin, and the word was in him, When ha
came to the water, the supreme power descended upon
him; and he had in him all fulness; for in him was the
word, the father, truth, the church, and life. They said
that the Christ, or the Spirit, came down upon the man
Jesus. He made known the Father, and destroyed death,
and called himself the Son of Man; for it was the good
pleasure of the Father of all that he should banish ignorance and destroy death: and the acknowledgment of him
is the overthrow of ignorance. From the account of Irenceus, we may infer that the Marcosians believed the facts
recorded in the gospels and that they received most, or
all the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Irenaeus
also says that they had an innumerable multitude of apocryphal and spurious writings, which they had forged: and
that they made use of that fiction concerning the child
Jesus, that when his master bade him say, alpha, the Lord
did so; but when the master called him to say beta, he
answered, “Do you first tell me what is alpha, and then
I will tell you what beta is.” As this story concerning
alpha and beta is found in the gospel of the infancy of Jesus
Christ, still in being, some are of opinion that this gospel
was composed by the Marcosians. 1

This text has been generated using commercial OCR software,
and there are still many problems; it is slowly getting better
over time.
The text was scanned and OCRd several times, and
a majority version of each line of text was chosen.
Please don't reuse the content
(e.g. do not post to wikipedia)
without asking liam
at holoweb dot net first (mention the colour of your socks in the mail),
because I am still working on fixing errors.
Thanks!